The bottom line is clear: Our vital interests in Afghanistan are limited and military victory is not the key to achieving them. On the contrary, waging a lengthy counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan may well do more to aid Taliban recruiting than to dismantle the group, help spread conflict further into Pakistan, unify radical groups that might otherwise be quarreling amongst themselves, threaten the long-term health of the U.S. economy, and prevent the U.S. government from turning its full attention to other pressing problems. -- Afghanistan Study Group

Kirkuk:#1: Two people were killed and three injured in a car bomb blast in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Saturday, police said. The bomb was attached to the car of a Kurdish family, according to a police source told the German Press Agency dpa. The explosion took place south of the city, which lies some 250 kilometres north of the capital Baghdad.

Mosul:#1: Three Iraqi army soldiers and one civilian were wounded on Saturday in two separate blasts northern and western Mosul city. “A roadside bomb went off today in the al-Baladiyat neighborhood, northern Mosul, targeting an Iraqi army patrol, wounding two soldiers and one civilian who was nearby the blast’s location,” a security source from the Ninewa province told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

#2: “Another roadside bomb went off today at the Badosh Rd., western Mosul, targeting an Iraqi army patrol, wounding one soldier,” the source added.

Afghanistan: "The Forgotten War"#1: Grenades and gunfire killed 16 people and injured several others when militants attacked a convoy of civilian vehicles that the Pakistani military was escorting through the country's tribal region Saturday, intelligence officials told CNN. Militants ambushed the convoy, two Pakistani intelligence officials said, first using rocket-propelled grenades and then following with gunfire. The officials asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media. They said the convoy was mostly local Shia Muslims traveling to Peshawar from Parachinar, the largest town in the district of Kurram.

#2: At least 18 suspected militants were killed and 10 others wounded in an air strike launched Saturday by the Pakistani air forces on several militant hideouts in the country's northwest tribal area of Orakzai, reported local Urdu TV Channel Dunya. According to report, the jet fighters of the Pakistani air forces bombarded seven houses in the area, which were believed to be militant hideouts based on tip-offs, and destroyed them completely.